


ready player two

by kou-hakusei (kohaku_shi)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: F/M, Hanahaki AU, Hanahaki Sickness, Illnesses, Reader-Insert, TW: Blood, TW: Mental Health, casual gamer!reader, hanahacheese event, hanahaikyuu, hanahaki should be a tw all of its own honestly, mental health, or as I like to call it, slight ffxiv mentions, tw: terminal illnesses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:00:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26169844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kohaku_shi/pseuds/kou-hakusei
Summary: [title pending, may just keep it as is, but--]written for tumblr/discord hanahaki x haikyuu event.kozume kenma x readerwhen you first meet kozume kenma, you never expect the feelings that would blossom. you also never expect the killer flower disease that would take over your lungs because of it. but you're nothing if not stubborn, at least. so you'll get it through it...--maybe.[incomplete/work-in-progress] Haikyuu!!, Alternate Universe (Event/Prompt/Hanahaki; Reader-Insert; HQ x Reader fic)
Relationships: Kozume Kenma & Kuroo Tetsurou, Kozume Kenma & Reader & Kuroo Tetsurou, Kozume Kenma/Reader, Nekoma Volleyball Club & Reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	1. first contact

**Author's Note:**

> for those that don't know, hanahaki is a disease where flowers grow in your lungs when you fall in love. the only cure is to get the person who you love to return your love, or to get a risky surgery that may permanently affect your ability to love and erase your memory of everyone you ever loved. how far it goes is up to the writer. i won't tell you which one i am ;)
> 
> other than that, i'd just like to say that this is dedicated to everyone in the cheese cult server (inside joke for those unaware)'s hanahacheese/hanahaqueso event, and i hope you all enjoyed it as much i enjoyed writing it--
> 
> even if it's now months overdue for the event (and still incomplete, *ahahahaha*). thank you for inspiring me to write again, my dear cheese goddesses!!
> 
> ~~honestly, i'm just posting this part now bc i forgot this was sitting in drafts for nearly a month now (breaks out into cold sweat at losing everything and having to start over, eye)~~
> 
> please don't mind any typo's, i'll come back and go over it again later, i swear. (or just let me know and i can fix it, please and thank you!)

.•❀°°.•° ❀ °•.°°❀•.

_He stood beneath the cherry blossoms, eyes drawn to the fluttering petals._

_He missed you. Every moment without you felt like a lifetime, like some small part of him was dying. Every minute ーevery second of the days that he couldn’t see you._

_Kozume Kenma loved ーno,_ loves _you, more than volleyball and more, even, than his favorite games._

 **_That much_** _, he mused, thoughts wistful if melancholic,_ **_would never change..._ **

**_No matter what._ **

.•° ✿ °•.

The first time you met was in middle school. Kenma had ended up in the class with a bunch of veritable strangers, only agreeing to attend Nekoma because it was an escalator school… 

ーand a _little_ because it was also the school that his only real friend, Kuro, attended. 

He’d always felt out of place in these classes. Where everyone seemed to already know each other, and no one was willing to come up to a new person and just... _talk_ to them. 

It certainly didn’t help that he was so shy and couldn’t bring himself to talk to anyone either…

_But maybe that’s why your first interaction with him was so vivid, even now…?_

.•❀°°.•° ❀ °•.°°❀•.

You’d seen him around before. Maybe not interacted with him, but you’d seen the quiet boy with his taller, chicken-haired friend. ( _No, really, it made him look like a rooster, no lie._ ) 

You’d never felt the need or the courage to interact with them though, despite somehow crossing paths so often (maybe they lived close-by? you muse). But suffice to say that you were curious, especially when you always seemed to come across him playing games with an almost religious intensity when you did.

_Later, when you found out that he only lived a block or two away from you, well… You wonder if maybe you would have met and become friends with them much sooner, if you’d just been the type to go out instead of keeping to yourself at home...?_

In any case, seeing him without anyone else, sitting all alone with just his portable game in hand, there was just… _something_ about him that made you want to go up and talk to him. It wasn’t like you had any friends in this new school, anyway. Most of your friends from elementary school had all ended up going to different schools, so unless you wanted to be a complete loner, you’d have to talk to _someone_. And, spurred by curiosity ーand because he seemed like the only other person in your class who didn’t know anyone, and didn’t seem like someone who’d require a lot of energy to talk withー you found yourself standing, your feet taking the few steps it’d take to reach him. Everyone else already forming groups and cliques while you’d just been sitting there, observing.

“...Oh, I know that game,” you murmur in surprise, as you catch sight of the screen the boy’s eyes are glued to.

He jumps, his name is… Kenma? You think you’d heard the tall one say his name often enough, despite the distance ( _no, you’re not a stalker, really. That guy was just_ really loud _, honest_ ). You’d never caught the taller guy’s name, but then, Kenma(?) seemed to be the more soft-spoken type, anyway.

“...Did you...need something…?” he asks quietly, eyeing you warily and clearly anxious.

Somehow, he looks like a small animal, as he hunches over his game, almost like a turtle or a rabbit shrinking into himself.

“Ah, sorry if I startled you…” you start, apologizing with an awkward smile on your face. For a moment, you were at a loss for words, and you’re stuck, staring at him as he glances between you and his game.

It takes a moment for you to find your voice again, a little nervous yourself from how anxious he was being. But it doesn’t take long for you to paste on a proper smile and ask for his name (though you were already sure you knew it), introducing yourself as well.

“...It’s Kozume… Kenma…” he murmurs in response to your inquiry. His voice is soft, kind of… _soothing_ … to listen to? You feel like you could listen to him talk forever, if he’d just, y’know, actually _talk_. There’s a pause before he tacks on a polite, “It’s...nice to meet you…?”

You smile, telling him he can just call you by your first name or your preferred name, as he offers the same. The wary light in his eyes slowly fading but still persistently there. Especially when you start up a conversation about the game he was playing.

You weren’t an avid gamer like he seemed to be, but with how into it he was, it made you itch to play again as well. And considering you were a casual gamer that rarely ever actually finished playing the games you got…? That was… well, _rare,_ to say the least. 

You were more of an...observer? you supposed. Preferring to read or watch, though you had a little bit of a bad habit of picking up things that looked really interesting and then, uh, well… _not_ finishing most of it. Especially if it wasn’t mostly animation or visual novels when it came to games.

Still, there were a few games you’d finished. Like P*kemon, or, well, uh… some of your _otome games,_ you supposed. ( _It was just too easy to get sucked into the storyline, okay! Don’t judge!_ )

It wasn’t like you had much to do, outside of keeping your grades at an acceptable level, or just making sure you stayed alive. Your parents were always out for one reason or another, mainly work, and after seeing that you were responsible enough, had left your budget in your hands.

Honestly, though? You spent more on necessities than merchandise, but you did manage to save enough to get some of what your parents would have considered ‘superfluous’ if they’d just been home often enough to see you building your little treasure trove. It was a guilty pleasure, but it kept your mind occupied, and off the topic of how empty your home was…

(Maybe you could convince them to let you get a pet?)

And as long as you could give a response that they were satisfied with, your parents rarely bothered you about your hobbies. Then again, they were often too tired to really talk to you, outside of checking to make sure you were alive and well. Neither of them was aware of the slow incline towards becoming an otaku you were on, though. If they had, then maybe they would have been more concerned about leaving you to your own devices...

°•❀• ° °•. ❀ .•° ° •❀•°


	2. second

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has actually been sitting here for a while but after going through it, it seems fine to me so I thought it'd be a good time to post it considering the date here.
> 
> So, uh... Happy Valentines Day...? 
> 
> (Let me know if you catch any mistakes, if you don't mind! And thank you to my dear commenter who said they're enjoying this work! I really appreciate the feedback and love hearing from you! ;))
> 
> Also, apologies for spacing issues. I'll get around to fixing that. I'm not even sure why Ao3 keeps doing it either :((
> 
> In any case, fingers crossed I actually have the time to properly sit down and type/write more soon. Things have been so busy lately I barely have time to relax let alone write. ;v;

°•❀•°°•. ❀ .•°°•❀•°

Somehow, _to both your surprise_ , it wasn’t long before the two of you became close friends. As clubs weren’t required in middle school, Kuroo (whose name you finally learned) was the only one on the volleyball team. Kenma and yourself spending more time together playing or studying than anything else (though Kuroo still insisted on having Kenma set for him. You’d never really been into sports, but it wasn’t long before you started learning the ins-and-outs of volleyball...courtesy of Kuroo, of course). 

Soon, you were visiting each others’ homes. Mainly Kenma’s, where you’d greet his family, and then go up to his room where he was likely already playing. Kenma didn’t mind it, though. It was nice to have another gaming friend, though it was a _little_ frustrating that you were such a casual gamer...?

Either way, it soon became an even alternating thing. Especially when Kuroo was busy with club things.

If you were waiting for Kuroo’s practice to end, you’d both quickly get through your homework before pulling out your portable gaming systems. Of the games you had, about a third to half overlapped with the games he played, so you’d bring several games. Mainly the usual games... but after he’d found your otome collection, you’d felt less need to keep that side of you hidden. Especially since he didn’t seem to mind outside of some mild confusion.

It wasn’t as if you always shared the same interest or played the same games, after all. You weren’t clones or twins, but your own different people. So was it any surprise that you’d have different tastes? Sure, some overlapped but…

.•❀°°.•° ❀ °•.°°❀•.

“Wait, no, _move to the side, Y/N,_ it’s going to use its stunner!” 

You were playing one of the mmorpg’s Kenma liked, but you were at a much lower level than Kenma since you didn’t play as, uh… _aggressively (_ _read: religiously_ _)_ as he did. For some reason, though, he never got mad at the fact, just sighing when you’d forget to log in for ‘dailies’ but resigned to having to remind you to do so, even if you didn’t level very fast.

In any case, while he was playing on his playst*tion console, you were playing on a laptop that you’d practically _begged_ your parents for, citing research and school-use as reasons (but really, you knew what you used it for more. Thank goodness they let you do the research and pick a good one, or else you wouldn’t be able to play in the same room with your friend). It also helped that you’d worked hard to keep your grades in the upper percentile, and gave them the safety clause ーthat you wouldn’t have to be out so late on your own, or get stuck at the library, etc. In the end, they’d relented, but while you did use it for homework and research, you also used it for, uh, _other_ guilty pleasures that you were sure your parents wouldn’t approve of (it did help you save money, though, even if you did feel guilty about it. But you made sure to properly support your favorites! _Honest_ ).

“ _Ah-!_ …I got stunned,” you pout, puffing your cheeks as you stare at your frozen avatar, the boss you were fighting still spouting waves of flame, and the occasional rocky “ant-trap” as you liked to call it.

Kenma chuckled, “What’d you expect when you don’t move fast enough?” 

With a few quick button presses of the controller in his hands, he casts some spell that heals you and releases you from your rocky prison.

You huff, “I don’t know why you play with me when I suck,” you mutter, using a keyboard unlike Kenma, who was using the tv screen to play his character. For some reason, after you’d started playing the game out of curiosity, he’d started teaming up with you more often for quests and boss battles. It felt like he was carrying you most of the time, but he’d just claim that it was good for raising the levels of his other classes.

Which, _fine_ , but why he continued to insist on playing with you, you weren’t really sure.

(Because let’s be honest, while you weren’t the worst, you were nowhere near Kenma’s level… but you just couldn’t force yourself to play when you weren’t up to it…. And even if you tried to secretly level up, Kenma would _know,_ almost immediately, since it was one of the games he practically _lived_ in.)

“... _I like playing with you,_ ” he mutters, too quiet for you to hear. You turn to him, your character still running across the screen towards a safer area (you were _not_ getting knocked off the platform again, _thank you very much_ ).

“...? What was that, Kenma?” you ask, confused. “I didn’t hear what you said,” you pout, never sure if he was doing it on purpose or not.

He turns pink, but you think it’s probably just a trick of the light (you _have_ been staring at the screen for a while now... it happens). Then again, he was still pretty shy at times, and while you weren’t exactly an extrovert yourself, you were at least a little less so than him.

“...I said I don’t mind playing with you,” he tells you, eyes glued to the screen as he carefully didn’t look at you. “You might want to pay attention to your avatar, by the way,” he warns you. Deftly controlling his character, while you turn back to your own screen and yelp.

“Oh _ー_ _s--tー_ ” you curse, scrambling to get yourself out of attack range. “...that was close,” you sigh, as the boss lets off its attack, a large gout of flame that would have blown you off the platform (again).

Kenma snickers, “It helps that I get to practice my other classes... and play with a _handicap_ , too, I guess,” he smirks, and you know he’s only (probably) joking for the most part, but you still can’t help but sulk.

 _“Well I’m so glad I entertain you, your highness_ ,” you drawl, almost feeling as if you were channeling Kuroo. You both pause for a moment and laugh.

You’re not sure why, but it feels like something warm’s blossoming in your chest.

_It’s not until later that you find out it was the literal seeds of love from a certain disease. One that might just end up killing you._

°•❀•°°•. ❀ .•°°•❀•°

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, side note, the mmorpg scene is from an actual game. Kudos to anyone who can guess with just that, but suffice to say I don't own said game...
> 
> Well, I do, but I don't own the franchise, teehee, pero? ;9


End file.
